Myriad
by Mary B. Wolf
Summary: Oooooh. Nice one. Bet that one's worth a pretty penny. - ten drabbles of various genres.


Drabble collection from LJ (also posted there). Just a bit of everything, and I'm still new to the Orphen fandom, so enjoy. Let me know what you think?

**Edited 2 March 2013 because I just couldn't handle the typos anymore.**

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><p><strong>1. Angst<strong>

Orphen had always been afraid this would happen. He'd always figured he'd be unsurprised when that _idiot_ blonde jumped in front of a spell and got herself killed, and in a way, he was. But more than that, he was horrified when her body staggered under the force of the magic and collapsed with a sickening thump to the dirt.

And because he'd failed to protect her- had, in fact, _killed_ her himself- he spent the next seven years slowly destroying himself, until he was found dead in Bagup's inn with a photo of Cleo beside him.

**2. AU**

"Intruder!" a maid shrieked from her bedroom, voice muffled through the heavy wooden door between the bathing room and bedroom. "Guards! Intruder, help!"

Cleo flew out of her bathtub, dripping wet with her hair soaked, and barely paused to put on a robe. She grabbed her sword from her pile of discared clothes and flung the door open.

She collided with someone- a tall, solid someone- and fell on her ass. The only thing that kept her from being _furious_ at this indignity was that the man she'd run into also fell.

"Watch it, princess," he snapped, leaping to his feet nimbly. "I'm busy here."

Cleo groped for her sword, but it was too far out of reach, having been knocked from her hand when they bumped into each other. In light of this, she clambered to stand, retorting, "I know, _thief_, you're busy robbing us. Leave now and I won't hurt you."

The thief laughed caustically, dashing around the room and swiping coins and jewelry off tables. He was too fast to watch, so Cleo turned her attention to her sword- at the same moment the thief did. He reached it first.

"Oooooh," he breathed. "Nice one. Bet this is worth a pretty penny." And he snatched it up.

She reacted on instinct. _"GIVE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!"_ she screamed. "My father gave me that! It was the last thing he gave me before he died! Put it down!"

"Sorry, princess," the thief said, and what confused her was that he sounded _genuinely_ contrite. He dashed for the window. "If you really want it back, find the street Orphen and fight for it."

She scrambled for him, but by the time she'd reached where he'd been, the thief had jumped and was lost in the throng below.

**3. Crack**

"Krylancelo," Hartia whispered.

"Yes, Hartia?" Orphen mumbled back, blind drunk.

"Majic has just given birth," Hartia said. "It appears to be yours. Care to explain?"

"If you agree to tell Cleo, sure." Orphen stood from the stool and stumbled sideways. Hartia let him fall.

"I'm not explaining to your wife why your apprentice just bore your child."

"Well, fuck," Orphen muttered, looking up at Hartia blearily from the floor.

**4. Crossover**

Orphen wakes up in a giant metal box with a dark-skinned woman pointing a gun at his head. As if that isn't bad enough, a mountain of a man is holding an unusually silent Cleo and a grim-faced Majic at knife-point in a corner. Lycoris is nowhere to be seen.

A smaller man holding a pistol and wearing a long brown coat steps out of the shadows created by the boxes everwhere. "How did you manage to stow away?" he asks. "We ain't been planet-side in a good three weeks and _Serenity_ ain't that big. Four extras woulda been found out long time ago."

Orphen knows he could take every one of them on this ship in a fight if he had to, but since nobody's fired or thrown a punch or a spell yet, it might just be better to talk through this one. Even so, he can't keep the sneer out of his voice when he answers.

"We didn't stow away," he says. "Last night we were sleeping underneath a tree. Now I'm awake and you're holding my fiancée and my apprentice hostage and God only knows what you've done with my friend."

From the catwalk overhead, a pretty brunette girl appears. "That little girl was with you?" she muses. "She was banged up pretty good, so Doc's taking-"

_"Kaylee," _snaps the man in the brown coat, a bit of a whine in his voice, and the pretty brunette stops talking with a guilty look on her face.

"Sir," says the woman still pointing a gun at his head. "I don't think they're lying."

The man in the brown coat glances back and forth between her and the mountain of a man holding Cleo and Majic at knife-point. Then he swears impressively in another language.

**5. First Time**

_"You son of a bitch! You'll never touch me again, I swear to God! I_ hate _you! Why did I let you- AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!"_

The rant cut off abruptly with a pained scream and a vicious tightening on his hand. Orphen was silently gratefuly, even though Cleo's grip was _crushing bones_ and he was wondering why he'd agreed to be in the room when she gave birth to their first child.

Sixteen hours later, after the doctors had wrapped up a tiny, wrinkled red thing and placed it in his arms, he realised he'd be there for _every_ birth.

**6. Fluff**

Cleo kissed Mariabella on the cheek and waved her off, standing on her stoop in the city until her sister's carriage was out of sight. Then she turned into her house, excited to see her husband and daughter again after three weeks away.

She wasn't quiet as she entered, kicking her shoes off and dropping her bags in the entry hall with a dusty _thump!_ "Orphen!" she shouted, starting down the hall to their home. "Orphen, I'm home! Aren't you going to come kiss me?"

She poked her nose into the kitchen first, as it was the first room she came across on her trek through the house. Aside from a few dirty dishes in the sink, some groceries scattered across the counter (with cabinet doors hanging open around the room as if someone had abruptly stopped in the middle of putting them away), and mail sitting on the table, the room was empty. Similarly, the dining room was messy and devoid of life.

But when she stepped into the living room, she found her husband's feet poking out from the end of the sofa. Only slightly irritated, she rounded the side. Stretched across the sofa on his back was her black-clad Orphen and on his chest lay Misandra, his eight-month-old carbon-copy and the joy of Cleo's life. They were both sound asleep.

**7. Humor**

When the smoke cleared, Majic was nowhere to be found. The bigger the magic he taught his apprentice, the faster the boy bailed when it went wrong. Today's lesson had been transfiguration; more specifically, turning a male into a female. It was high-level magic that required the utmost concentration and precision. The split second before he cast the spell- on Volcan, who had been graciously volunteered- Eris had called from nearby and the boy's hormone level had risen drastically, equalled only by how quickly his concentration had fallen. Orphen was happy that Majic finally had a steady, semi-normal girlfriend, but _honestly._

He stormed back to camp after making sure that Volcan wasn't going anywhere, adjusting his clothing as he went. _"MAJIC!"_ he roared. Hearing a quiet 'eep' from the other side of a tree, he headed that way.

Cleo stopped him first, turning away from the food cooking on the campfire. From the smell, it was Hartia's work. "Orphen- whoa," she began. "What the hell happened to you? You're-"

"Majic missed," he growled, and it sounded somehow more threatening coming from the new, higher-pitched vocal chords.

Cleo eyed him skeptically. "You make a pretty girl," she commented, her gaze catching on the new additions to his physique. "At least you have your own breasts to play with now..."

Diverted from Majic by the heat he saw in Cleo's face, Orphen caught her around the waist and put his mouth to her ear and breathed, "But I'd rather play with yours."

**8. Hurt/Comfort**

Cleo read the letter, a horrified expression on her face. It was one Orphen hated seeing there, despite appearances.

"Oh, God, no," he heard her breathe, crushing the letter and shooting to her feet. Tears were gathering in her eyes and when she spoke, her voice was tight and she stuttered. "I-I have to g-go home." She swallowed hard. "Right- right now, oh, _God."_

The tact filter in his brain kicked off, as it usually did when he was speaking with Cleo, and he sneered, "What's the matter? Your mother die?"

Cleo turned her big blue eyes on him, looking _betrayed,_ and whispered, "She's been sick so long...I shouldn't have left..."

_Instantly,_ Orphen felt guilty, but before he had a chance to say anything to fix it, she had dropped the letter, snatched up her pack and sword, and taken off into the night, Leki whining as he followed. He chanced a glance at Majic, to see the boy giving him a disgusted glare the likes of which he'd never seen before, one that clearly said, _Go after her and fix it or I'll never forgive you._ And as ineffective as Majic was at physically or magically punishing anything, the boy had a God-given talent for guilt-trips when he decided to use it.

Orphen put down his stew and set off after Cleo. It didn't take him long to catch her, as she'd all but collapsed a dozen yards away, trembling. Leki was licking her face. He knelt next to her, patting her shoulder awkwardly. A moment later, she was in his arms, sobbing her heart out on his shoulder. Leki sat at her hip.

"Um, there, there," he said uncertainly, rubbing her back. This only made her sob harder. Why did comforting a girl have to be so _difficult?_

"I can't believe she's gone," Cleo sniffled.

Knowing his proclivity for _fucking up everything beyond recognition_ when he opened his mouth in situations like this, Orphen wisely stayed silent and continued rubbing her back.

**9. Smut**

"Cle-_Cleo-"_ Orphen broke off with a raspy moan as Cleo's tongue tapped the slit in the head of his cock before trailing down the bottom of the shaft. His hips shifted restlessly where he was sitting on the bed, her blonde head between his thighs. His brown hand was tangled in her hair, not doing anything but clenching and unclenching as she sucked him off.

His eyes closed. A moment later, she sucked his tip between her lips, swirling her tongue around it. She took him deeper- once, twice. Before she could swallow him a third time, Orphen cupped her jaw gently and brought her face to meet his in a light kiss.

"That's enough of that for now," he said, drawing her onto the bed. She settled comfortably back on the pillows, her yellow sunshine hair contrasting greatly with his black sheets, and he hovered over her, poised to enter.

When he hesitated a moment too long, she tilted her hips upward in invitation, whimpering his name. As he started to slide his engorged cock into her heat, he tossed his head back-

And wakes up.

"Dammit," he mutters, reaching without hesitation under his blankets and palming himself for relief from the ache in his groin.

**10. UST**

The young man dancing with her presses closer and she doesn't push him back. Her eyes are fixed on the dark-haired sorcerer standing on the edge of the crowd, who she can only see in glimpses here and there- but he doesn't seem to be able to rip his eyes from her as people shift and move around her.

Cleo steps closer to the male body beside her and dances a little slower. The young man's head dips, his mouth brushing her ear, but before anything else can happen, someone's captured her wrist and is dragging her away. She knows without looking that it's Orphen.

"Let go of me." But it's dull, listless, because she already knows what's going to happen. It thrills her.

"Stupid blonde _moron,"_ he's muttering, leading her away from the festival and deeper into the mostly deserted residential areas of the city. _"Brat."_

Then she's in an alley against a wall and he's kissing her, hard and forceful, yanking her legs and lifting her hips to cradle his without care for her. For as long as she can, she remains silent, moving her mouth equally hard and forceful over his, grinding her pelvis against his just as much as he is against hers, but as always, it's only a matter of time, no matter how much she doesn't want this to end.

"O-Orphen," she says, part gasp, part moan. "Ah. _Yes."_

He pulls away so fast she falls on her ass.

"I apologise, Cleo," Orphen says evenly, like his dick isn't still hard and straining against the confines of his pants. "It won't happen again, I promise."

But Cleo knows it will. It always does, when she teases him. One day, he'll have no choice but to give in completely. It's a day she looks forward to as much as she dreads.

Orphen turns to walk away, his boots clicking on the cobblestone, as she makes no move to stand and simply watches.


End file.
